Review: StarNews

Overview

StarNews provides all the celebrity gossip you can desire. It claims to receive this knowledge from various databases, news sites filtered through gossip sites and onto your little iPhone. So turn it on and enjoy your heart out with up to date news on Paris's latest embarrassments.

The Features

• The app has a page for celebrity gossip that pops up as news as soon as you turn it on. I had it on for a few minutes and already received a few news stories to scroll through. It gives you up to 200 stories a minute to keep you up to date, and remembers the articles you have already read.
• For those who are more into their celebrity news, you might want to specify which celebrity you care about, a feature not often found in other apps. There is a list of 900 celebrities to chose your favorites from.
• If you have trouble processing all of that, StarNews simplifies it more by giving you a three star rating system.
• You can then email a friend or yourself the news.

The Breakdown

The Good

You are not going to find another app that gives you so much data and that actually allows you to filter through your own preferences. Most celebrity apps will give you information from only a few sources and most of them will read like a newspaper. Some even claim to let you interact (though the users find flaws in that). This app is simple, easy to use and could be very beneficial to a gossip fiend. I live in LA but I have never found the need to dig up info on stars, though I will occasionally watch TMZ (Something I am not proud of). But, I know people who follow such things religiously - and for them this is the app. The TMZ app, while being free, unfortunately reads like any other newspaper and advertises as well, which is why StarNews wins out on UI.

The Bad

Though it has some good features I feel like there needs to be more interaction. Perhaps it would be better if you could somehow set the preferences to only show sights that you prefer, maybe purely gossip or more factual. Another interesting development would be the ability to access pics and bios of the numerous stars that interest you from within the app. Though it does what it says very well, I would like to see some changes to make it more user involved. A newer version with more options might give users something to look forward to.

The Ugly

Let me put it this way: by app standards StarNews is grossly overpriced. However, to the person that must have his/her dose of gossip daily, let me ask you a simple question: How much have you spent on the magazines that catch your eye at the check out counter, or how many subscriptions do you have of gossip-zines. Most important of all weren't you looking to find out that Paris had seven toes, and couldn't find the magazine with the story, because Brad Pitt spit out a burrito and offended the whole mexican nation. What is 19.99, when you have spent so much already. But, for me its still too much, and I am counting it against the superficial app standard.

The Verdict

This is a very interesting app and potentially very useful to the right person. However, judging by the price I would say you can find better apps for your iPhone for less than half the price. On the other hand it seems like it is most likely the best app of its kind, mainly because it gives you the option to follow only certain celebs that you are interested in. If you wrestle a million newspapers a day to find what happened to dear Apple (Paltrow's daughter) today, maybe you want to add her mommy to your preferred list on this app and be home free. After review add: The creators of the app used the Mac Vs. PC pricing argument, with the promise to look into the situation by giving my comments a fair run around their table of discussion. Also mentioned that the backend of this app is costly to maintain.

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